“Sure,” Leaphorn said. “I remember the double murder years ago on old Route 66 near the Laguna Reservation.
At Budville. Bud Rice and someone else shot. Turned out a bandit type from Alabama or somewhere shopped around in Albuquerque for someone to rob, paid the locals a fee, they provided him a car, all the information, he did the job and got away.”
“Killed himself in prison,” Garcia said.
“But doing time for another crime,” Leaphorn said.
“He decided to confess to the Budville murders before he died. But you’re saying the thinking was that Shewnack had contacted Delonie, offered to organize the crime for him?”
“The thinking is Shewnack showed up in Albuquerque, hanging around in the bars where the hard guys do their socializing, let it be known he was ready for some action, heard about Delonie. Having a hard-guy reputation, so forth.”
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“Sounds reasonable,” Leaphorn said.
“Anyway, whether or not robbing Handy’s was Delonie’s original idea, I don’t think he gets the blame for the way Shewnack set them all up. He told his parole officer that Ellie was his girlfriend. He was going to marry her, or so he thought, before Shewnack showed up and wooed her away from him and then wrecked her life. Apparently he talked about that a lot in prison. Anyway, his parole was passed over the first time because the board heard he’d been telling other cons he was going to hunt down the son of a bitch who’d ratted on him and kill him.
He didn’t get out until early this year.”
“How’s he doing since then?” Leaphorn asked.
Garcia shrugged. “Okay, I guess. His parole officer told me he’s been checking in and behaving himself. Turns out Delonie was sort of like Begay in prison. Turned himself into a skilled laborer. Got to be an electrician, plumber, that sort of thing. Good with fixing things—from your refrigerator to your truck. He married a Navajo woman over near Torre-jón, and I think he does maintenance and general handy-man stuff over at the chapter house out there.” Leaphorn considered that. “Wonder how he managed that?”
“What I heard, he’s married to a woman who’s involved with that Christian mission place out there, and she’s one of the people working at the chapter house.
Keeps the records or something,” Garcia said. “I’ve heard some gossip that the marriage didn’t last long. But he didn’t have Delonie on his ‘watch out for trouble’ list.” Leaphorn sighed.
Garcia chuckled. “You sound disappointed.”
“Well, I’m just beginning to wonder what we think THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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we’re looking for out here. Where we are now with what we know, all we could take to the district attorney’s office is a funny feeling. Not a hint of evidence about anything.” He laughed. “I guess we could tell him we just don’t feel right about that Shewnack death, and that fire either, and that maybe somebody stole an antique rug, and so forth, and if it was a murder, the one with the best motive would be Delonie. And then he reminds us that Delonie was in custody when Totter’s place burned and that he could call in a whole crowd of prison guards to back up his alibi, and about then the D.A. would recommend that we make an appointment to see a shrink.”
Garcia laughed. “I’m beginning to think that might not be a bad idea.”
“Well,” Leaphorn said, “I have to admit that all I have is that funny feeling I started with. The arson experts said there was no evidence of any kerosene or gasoline, or any of those fire spreaders arsonists use. Totter’s insurance company lawyers must have worked that over very thoroughly.”
“You think so?”
“Well, from what I’ve heard, Totter collected on a lot of valuable stuff burned with his store. So they would have done some looking.”
“Which brings us back to that damned rug,” Garcia said. “Bork didn’t seem to think it burned after he saw that picture. So we have us a clever insurance fraud arson with Shewnack burned up by accident. Or maybe burned on purpose to provide the careless drunk starting it with a cigarette.”
Garcia paused, waiting a Leaphorn reaction. Got none, and went on.
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“Or maybe Totter killed him for some reason or other, and needed to dispose of the body, and then added in a little insurance fraud as a by-product.” Leaphorn didn’t comment.
“I’ll bet you’d already thought about that,” Garcia said.
“Well, yes,” Leaphorn said. “And I admit I’d like to know more about the fire. But nobody’s likely to help us reopen that case. Just think about it. The FBI was just delighted to get Shewnack’s name off its list after all those years. They won’t be eager to prove they missed the fact somebody murdered him.”
“And who’s around these days who cares?” Garcia asked.
“There’s me,” Leaphorn said. “And then there’s the man who made that call to Mel Bork. That caller seemed to care. He didn’t want Mel messing with Shewnack’s old ashes.”
Garcia nodded.
“You have any idea who made that call?” Leaphorn said.
“I wish I did. And I’ve got a puzzle you could solve for me. How did you get involved in this business? What’s your interest?”
“I showed you Bork’s letter.”
“I meant what got you into it in the first place.”
“I wasn’t really into it,” Leaphorn said. “I was out here looking into a sort of funny burglary of an old woman’s hogan. She and her daughter weave baskets out of willow, or reeds, then waterproof them with sap from pinyon trees and sell them to tourists. Anyway, somebody drove up while the old lady was away, broke into THE SHAPE SHIFTER
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the shed where they do their work, and stole about ten gallons of that sap. Captain Skeet—you remember him? I was a rookie then, and he sent me out to investigate and then had me drop that and go over to see what the federals were so excited about at Totter’s place.”
“Day or so after the fire then?”
“Yeah, when they went through all the victim’s stuff and found out he was Shewnack.”
Garcia was looking thoughtful. “Who stole that pinyon sap?”
Leaphorn laughed. “I guess you’d have to add that to your list of cold cases. The granddaughter said she saw a blue sedan roaring away. It looked to her like it might be almost new. Didn’t get a look at the driver and didn’t get a license number. She said there wasn’t a license plate on the bumper, but maybe one of those paper dealer’s permits was on the back window. Said it looked shiny new.”
“What else was stolen?”
“That was it, so they said. Just two big old lard buckets filled with pinyon sap.”
Garcia shook his head, shrugged. “Maybe they needed the buckets.”
“Or, let’s try this idea. Maybe Shewnack had taken that job with Totter intending to rob him. Sort of a repeat of the Handy affair. Let’s say Totter resisted, killed Shewnack, decided to dispose of the body, and he knew that pinyon sap would get things hot enough to turn Shewnack into ashes. How about that idea?”
“Yes, indeed,” Garcia said. “And since everybody around here burns pinyon as firewood, it wouldn’t look suspicious to arson inspectors. Totter could get a profit out of it.”
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They drove in silence then until Garcia pointed to the slope ahead, to what was left of the old Totter’s Trading Post. The soot-blackened adobe walls still stood. The old grocery store was mostly intact, as was an adjoining stone structure that had been Totter’s residence. But its doors were missing and its window frames were also empty.
“Scene of the crime,” Garcia said. “Except officially it wasn’t a crime. Just another fire caused by lighting up that last cigarette when you’re too drunk to know what you’re doing.”